1. Field of the Related Art
The present invention relates to a ribbon cable assembly having multiple, parallel conductors.
2. Background of the Invention
Many different types of wiring for transmitting various types of electrical signals are known. Depending on the types of signals being transmitted along the wire, different types of wires are known to give the best performance. For example, twisted wire pairs and coaxial cables typically provide better noise immunity than parallel wires and power applications, such as 120 V AC for example, must have a proper gauge to withstand the driven current.
When wiring a new building, such as a residential home, wires used for different purposes are typically wired separately. Thus, telephone wires, security wiring, and power wiring are all installed separately. This is costly to install and difficult to repair once installed.
To provide a more uniform wiring system, the assignee for this application previously developed a wiring topology that integrates different wires used for different purposes on a single ribbon cable assembly, which is the subject of a separate patent application bearing U.S. Ser. No 07/464,131 and the title "Improved Wiring Topology For Use In Constructing New Homes", which is expressly incorporated by reference into this application.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, this ribbon cable assembly 10 includes a ribbon cable 12 having power conductors 14 with positive, neutral, and ground wires of #12-14 gauge, respectively. Data conductors 16, made of a plurality of #24 gauge wires, are also provided for transmitting digital data communications. This ribbon cable 12 is then folded inside a protective outer jacket 18. Also disposed inside the outer jacket was a protective insulation 20, such as polyethylene, to keep the power conductors 14 and the data conductors 16 spaced apart to improve the signal to noise ratio on the data conductors.
However, it has been determined that the closeness of the power conductors 14 and data conductors 16, as well as the fact that the data conductors 16 are parallel wires, prevents the proper trans mission of digital data along data conductors due to electromagnetic interference generated by the power conductors 14. The presence of the protective insulation was not as effective as required for proper transmission of the digital data along data conductors 16.
Known shielding techniques typically surround the wires to be shielded with a conductive foil or conductive wire mesh. However, this type of shielding is expensive, very labor intensive, and difficult to splice.